MON 12 -2pm & WED 12-1pm

Course Description & Objectives

What are the grounds of cinematic authorship? One of the most hotly contested terms in critical theory, the “author” has been invoked to refer to a number of figures, constructs and complexes. Our aim is to become conscious of the ways in which the idea of cinematic “authorship” is configured in order to discuss these disparate concerns. Specifically, it shall be demonstrated how the concept is employed in relation to issues of collaborative creativity, individual versus industrial control, the structural integrity of filmic texts, and the relationship between auteur and audience. We shall endeavour to disentangle the various uses of the term in order to determine whether or not the invocation of authorship still holds critical value.

 In order to concretely illustrate these concerns, we will make reference to some of the signature works of two prominent American filmmakers, Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. Through close formal analysis, we will trace out recurring stylistic and thematic features that are often attributed to the directors’ respective creative preoccupations. More importantly, we will simultaneously discover how those features might illuminate different facets of “authorship” itself. By focussing on these directors, we shall also investigate and problematize popular beliefs surrounding two diverging American feature filmmaking traditions – the myths of corporate accountability versus creative independence. Rather than invest in characterizations of Kubrick as “uncompromising genius,” or Spielberg as “commercial apologist,” we shall see how the figure of the author can be used to reconcile seemingly antithetical creative sensibilities.